This Week's Miscellany (01/14/24)

Wonka, The Boy and the Heron, Burns Day, Wanderlust, St. Thomas More, and Homelessness

Hi, I’m Haley! Book midwife (editor) and author. Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.

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I’m trying to go to the movies more often. I’ve never been a frequent patron, but having a shared experience with other members of your community feels like something from a bygone era—something I don’t want to completely disappear. It’s pricey, but so are subscriptions to Hulu, Paramount Plus, Max, Netflix, Prime, Disney, etc. And an added benefit of going to the movies is you can’t fold laundry or scroll your phone while you watch. You have to do one thing (watch the movie). And I love being forced to focus on one thing.

Because of the Very Bad Christmas (Covid/Flu/Strep) all our plans were wrecked but we did sneak out for a couple of movies with our kids when they recovered: Wonka and The Boy and the Heron. I loved both, so I thought I’d share mini-reviews here.

Wonka

I don’t know what I expected. I’ve never been a big fan of Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). I love Roald Dahl’s original story but I find those films unsettling in a different and more unpleasant way than the book. Something about the aesthetic of each gives me the creeps. And the idea of creating a prequel didn’t thrill me. Another movie that rides the coattails of an established film? Can’t we make anything original anymore?

To my surprise, I loved it. The story feels very Dahl. The villains are positively Dickensian—Olivia Coleman is incredible, grotesque, and terrifying. The whole cast is wonderful. Miraculously, Timothee Chalamet didn’t annoy me with his cutesy earnestness. And Matt Whats-His-Name, the former host of The Great British Bake-Off, was actually a bit funny. And the music! And the dancing! It was a Real Musical.

While I didn’t know what kind of film I was getting into, the creators of Wonka did. This film didn’t have any of the waffling from genre to genre that plagues so many projects. This is a fun, silly, heartwarming, family musical. It’s visually beautiful. It’s simply a great time and I cried at the end. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and it isn’t written on two levels. This is my ultimate family movie pet peeve! I hate it when a family film is constantly winking at the parents with references and jokes that no child would understand. It’s lazy. Instead, a story for children should be good enough for adults by simply standing on its own two feet. If it isn’t, it’s not good enough for children.

Conclusion: Best musical film since The Greatest Showman and Matilda. An absolute treat and I’ll watch it again.

The Boy and the Heron

This film was long anticipated in the Stewart household. In February 2020, we all caught the Flu. We borrowed every Studio Ghibli film the library had available. And we fell in love with co-founder and studio director Hayao Miyazaki’s work. We’ve been fans ever since.

Miyazaki prioritizes beauty. His films are innovative but classic, accessible but profound. Soon after he co-founded Studio Ghibli he noted that he was alarmed by the state of Disney’s animation and that they “show nothing but contempt for the audience.” Miyazaki’s films let the audience wrestle with the meaning of the story. They fill the imagination with beautiful images, offering ample time to take them in. A sea of grass, a beautifully decorated room, a field of flowers are slowly presented to the viewer and can bring tears to the eyes. Such classics as My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service released forty years ago don’t look dated because Miyazaki uses primarily hand-drawn techniques and only rarely makes use of computer-generated tools. He once referred to an AI animation as “an insult to life itself.”

Miyazaki is now 83 and still directing. The Boy and the Heron continues his legacy of films so beautiful you can hardly bear it and too thought-provoking to ever forget. [SPOILERS AHEAD] The tale follows young Mahito during the Pacific War. His mother is ill and dies in a hospital fire. Mahito blames himself because although he ran toward the flames, he could not save her. Later, his father marries his late wife’s younger sister and they are expecting a baby. Despite his stepmother’s best efforts to reach him, Mahito remains cold, closed-off, and so miserable at school that he resorts to self-harm in order to avoid returning.

They move to the stepmother’s ancestral home where his mother grew up and Mahito begins seeing an aggressive heron that seems to want to give him a message. He is intrigued by a nearby property believed to have appeared supernaturally many years ago connected to his mother’s granduncle and also believed to be the place where Mahito’s mother disappeared for a time during her childhood. When his stepmother, heavily pregnant, wanders to the property, he goes in search of her and discovers an alternate world cultivated by the granduncle, a wizard of Oz character that pulls all the strings and orchestrates the structure of the world. Forcing the heron to guide him, Mahito also meets a girl who helps him. He later realizes that she is his mother during the time she was missing in her girlhood.

Mahito is determined to save his stepmother, but there are many obstacles to overcome. Eventually, he is offered the opportunity to inherit the role of his granduncle, the creator and sustainer of the alternate world. The granduncle assures Mahito that he can make the world beautiful. He can craft it just as he likes.

Mahito decides to reject the offer and bring his stepmother back to the real world. And the younger version of Mahito’s mother also decides to return to her own time. “But you will die,” Mahito warns her. She is not deterred and chooses to accept all the future holds in the real world, knowing that it also will hold the joy of being Mahito’s mother. In a pivotal moment as his stepmother Natsuko begins to go into labor, Mahito finally refers to her as his mother. It is almost as if a spell breaks when he accepts her and by his courage and devotion, saves his stepmother from the collapsing world inside the house. In saving Natsuko, he begins to heal from his grief over not being able to save his mother.

Many of Miyazaki’s films are about dealing with grief and this one is no different. It is heartbreaking and gorgeous and painful. But another theme that I couldn’t ignore is our opportunity to live a curated life in this digital age. Like the granduncle who arranges the false world with a set of toy blocks, we can also craft a false life for ourselves to inhabit. We can make it aesthetically appealing and ignore anything distressing. We can live through avatars and digital media. We can be the gods of our own world. But, The Boy and the Heron warns us, it will not be a life truly worth living. It will be robbed of humanity. Accepting the brokenness, death, and strangeness we will find in the real world and in our own hearts and yet, being brave and bringing beauty and loving our families—this is the work of the true hero. And in our world of AI and social media and endless distraction, we have to intentionally walk through the door of reality to accept this difficult and beautiful fate.

Conclusion: Another triumph for Miyazaki. A visual feast. A glorious film!

Links

Who Is Reading What and Why? by

Lincoln Michel

Of course, the “death of reading” has been written about my entire life and there’s nothing new to say. We live in a time of maximal distraction, maximal entertainment options, and minimal attention spans. The only thing this data reminds me is that people who blame the decline of reading on “MFA fiction” or “literary snobs” or whatever other grudges they have are a bit silly. Most Americans aren’t reading much of anything.

Was Thomas More a Hypocrite? On the meaning of conscience by Stephen D. Smith for The Lamp

As we have seen, for More, to act on conscience is to act in accordance with the collective understanding of Christians through the centuries. But this is a possibility only if there is a united Christianity to which you can look in shaping your beliefs and actions. Conversely, if Christianity is split into two contending factions—or three, or a hundred—the very possibility of acting on conscience will tend to disappear.

Can a Big Village of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin? in the NY Times

Take a minute and read about Community First! founded by Alan Graham, an Austin Catholic. Some of my friends have worked there, I’ve visited and it is an amazing place full of beauty, dignity, and warmth.

Wanderlust and stabilitas by

Gina

The oft-quoted line from St. Augustine comes to mind in this context: “Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” On the one hand, travel can “move us to delight”, move us to praise God for His Creation and the endless ways we can encounter Him in the world. On the other hand, this quote reminds us that our restlessness cannot be fulfilled by anything in this world, and that often the restlessness we feel is pointing us to a need to dig deeper into our relationship with God; to look for our fulfilment in Him.

Burns Day and How to Rediscover Authentic Celebration by

Katie Marquette

Imagine this: You’ve put on your best tartan and lit all the candles on a long wooden table. A dozen or so of your friends are chatting and sneaking early tastes of the Scotch Whisky you’ve set out for toasts later on. You’ve hooked up your best speakers and you turn on a playlist of pipes, bagpipes, and drums. You’re ready for a festive Burns Supper.

Come to Belgium and Germany!

My husband and I are leading our second pilgrimage with Fr. Harrison Ayre, a trip that he’s been dreaming up for several years. Beautiful abbeys, amazing breweries, daily Mass and a small group of pilgrims.—we’ll close the trip at 30 pilgrims and we’re 2/3 full. Last year’s pilgrimage to Scotland with Fr. Harrison was an experience I’ll treasure forever (and half of our pilgrims from that trip are already signed up for Belgium, so I’m not the only one who found it life-changing!)

You can check out the registration page: Heavenly Hops Pilgrimage with Fr. Harrison Ayre to Belgium and Germany.

Or listen to us share all about the details with Fr. Harrison on his podcast.

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Thanks for reading!

Haley

(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)

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